I attended my first ever night skirmish at SWAT Urban which was held on a rather warm Saturday evening on 22 August 2009.

Arrival at the former Army barracks in Saighton began at 20:00hrs for a 21:00hrs start. A good turn out with approximately 30 members in attendance (with a sprinkling of a few first timers). Sign-in formalities were kept simple and this speeded up everything so we could all get stuck in quickly with the minimum of fuss while we still had light to sort our kit out by.

The area of the 'safe-zone' was well lit by a lamp powered by a generator but if you parked on the perimeter road you probably needed more light as the evening wore on.

With the inclusion of a few surprises like lasers, strobes & smoke generators promised a great evenings skirmishing, all adding to the already 'spooky' atmosphere at SWAT.

All the action for the evening took place in-doors at the old Hospital complex, which had also been kitted out with some additional cover in parts of the large open spaces available in the building. The first scenario being a 'semi-auto' only game which involved a 'prisoner escape'. The 'prisoners had to make their way from one end of the building to the other with the 'guards' preventing their escape. The atmosphere generated in this dark creepy building was awesome. The lasers combine with 'tracer' fire made it truly a sight to behold. It's quite strange to see streams of BB's zip past in a darkened room just missing you! It's also strange seeing them flying off in any direction as they come to the end of their effective range spinning in all-sorts of directions and trajectories. The second game was of course a reverse of this with the 2 sides swapping around but 'fully-auto' this time.

I was at last able to give my new face mask a good run out and I think I'll be 'rocking' with this at future skirmish events and I was able to use my Fenix Torch for the 1st time which gives out some 270 plus lumens output which proved useful at times.

Some lessons learnt by me for this 1st time out night skirmishing:

Dark glasses are not very good, think driving in the pitch-black with dark sun-glasses on and you'll get the picture! (I had to change my lenses for clear ones as I just couldn't see anything!). I know this is elementary but it just didn't occur to me before the event. DOH!

A good powerful 'spot' torch/weapons torch is really useful at times.

Take a spare camping light or some such area lighting system for working out the back of your car with when loading up, fitting batteries to AEG's etc. it would help a lot.

Prepare as much as you can before going - loading up etc as when it gets dark it gets more difficult!

If anyone can add any further advice please let me know and I'll happily add it to this list for night skirmishing tips!

Here's what some of the members said in feedback about the event.

"...lasers,smoke and strobes certainly added to the atmosphere. Great games and great opponents made the night the best night game i have ever had!!!"

"I'll definatly be back again some time soon for a night game"

"...it was my first time, and thanks to EVERYONE who made it a great experience, everyone i spoke to was very friendly..."

"Thanks to nutz and all the swat staff for putting on a great nightgame, and big up to all the players who braved the dark"

Thanks for reading and happy skirmishing. To join in the fun just click on any of the SWAT links found throughout the site.

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